Abstract

Knowledge management is not new to construction companies, as they have been implementing and managing knowledge for as long as they have existed. However, there is the business need for organizations to continuously evaluate the effectiveness of their knowledge management enabling initiatives. With growing competition, companies must remain competitive through the deployment and use of various knowledge management enabling technologies. Equally important is the need to be aware of the factors that are related to the effectiveness of knowledge management enabling initiatives. As such, there is the need to know what those factors are, and the main purpose of this study is to identify the barriers and enablers of effective knowledge management enabling initiative in a construction organization. The research approach was a case study research design, and it captured in‑depth experiences of a specific construction organization before and after the implementation of their knowledge management enabling initiative, and the major drivers of improvement. In general, the research found three key barriers and enablers to the knowledge management enabling initiative at the case study organization: awareness centered on the need and value of knowledge or lack of it, a knowledge sharing environment or lack of it, and web‑enabled and integrated knowledge management systems or lack of it. It is hoped that from this study other construction organizations and other companies within other sectors would learn from the experience of the case study organization on barriers and enablers of effective knowledge management, as well as how to evaluate the effectiveness of their knowledge management initiatives.